or little children
to read, as compared with some hazy book. Then there are all degrees
of awakening. It is most interesting. I sometimes think that human
beings are as different from each other as things of a different
species."

St. Petersburg 1906.

"I told her (Baroness Ixkull) that I thought of leaving in August, if
possible. She is so urgent about my staying altogether in the
community that it makes it very hard to leave. At last I seem to have
found something where I am thought to be very useful and I have
fitting qualities, but alas so far from Poodie and Pats that it is
not possible. At least it is a thing I know I am prepared for now and
that is always open to me as a vent for energy, an occasion for
helping and regulator of the nervous system. If there is war again I
think nothing will hold me, but otherwise I am going to try to make
my character a possible one so that it will be a more peaceful member
of the family with you and Pats."

"No matter what I do later this year will have a lasting benefit. I
don't know what it is. I never seem to get enough of life. I know the
feeling that satisfies for I have had it a few times. Perhaps it is
youth, perhaps it is egotism, but anyway it is something that makes
one wish one had five lives to live at once. I am laboring through a
very interesting book on the Evolution of matter which demands a
great deal of concentration of a brain as uninformed in matters of
science as mine. I refuse to think and accept things in 'terms' which
when it gets to the point of the disassociation of atoms becomes
difficult not to do. I wish I had a really active brain that would
give me the results I want without requiring such an immense amount
of will which I can't command."

St. Petersburg 1906.

"My plans seem unable to take any definite shape for the moment. I
cannot leave my soldiers that I have had from the beginning and it is
uncertain yet when they will be in a condition to leave. I wish I
were a few years younger. I want to do so much."

(She was then 28 years old.)

St. Petersburg 1906.

"It is now seven A.M. I am just finishing night service but I feel
quite lively just because I know it is ending. Yesterday the
'sidelkas' (apprentices) received the cross. After they graduate they
can take cases and be paid about $20 a month. This course is only one
year. The sisters' course is two years but of course their work is
always free."

In Russia all nursing was consid